I'm a sucker for a cool piece of technology. The Espresso Book Machine, which can print a book in minutes before your eyes, fits the bill. If sentient robots ever succeed in taking over the world, this is how they will print their books.

We founded Google Books on the premise that anyone, anywhere, anytime should have the tools to explore the great works of history and culture. We recently made available over a million free public domain books for viewing and download from our web site. Reading digital books can be an enjoyable experience, but we realize that there are times when readers want a physical copy of a book. To that end, I'm excited to announce that we're partnering with On Demand Books to allow readers to purchase public domain books digitized by Google from any Espresso Book Machine at bookstores and libraries around the world.

Here's some video footage of the Espresso machine in action:

We believe in an open ecosystem where people can access and read books, whether at a computer, on their phone or electronic reader, or from their local library or bookshop. This announcement is yet one more step towards fulfilling that mission: it helps people find and read these books in more ways.